The online academic and career development community aims to connect students with educators and employers.

“Under the hood it’s a recruiting site,” Osburn said Thursday.

He launched the tech company last January with business partners and fellow part-time Saint Mary’s University faculty members Mark Boyle and Michael Sanderson.

“Equals6 is a social network for students,” Osburn said. “Our ultimate goal is to help them build a professional network while in school and then help them leverage that network to find their first entry-level position.”

While the battle for clicks in the realm of social media is increasingly fierce, the Halifax tech firm has dedicated a chunk of its marketing budget to scholarships advertised at campuses across the country.

The funding attracts students to the website to apply for the Top Talent scholarships, awarded based on grades, portfolio and participation on the site.

“In the last year we’ve given away 50 different scholarship awards worth just under $20,000,” Osburn said.

He noted that about 80 per cent were funded through Equals6 while the remainder were offered by employers registered on the company’s website.

Once students have discovered the social media network, most stick around to build their profile in the hopes of nabbing that coveted summer job, internship or entry-level position after college or university, Osburn said.

More than 10,500 students have signed up so far and the ranks are swelling by about 15 per cent each month.

“Adoption is really starting to grow,” Osburn said. “The growth over the last couple of months has started to be indicative of the viral adoption we were hoping would show up.”

While the website is free for students, the 125 registered employers such as Bell Aliant, Nova Scotia Power and SimplyCast Interactive Marketing pay $600 a year.

“It’s easy to hire a student but it’s not easy to hire a good one,” Osburn said. “We want to help employers find that really bright bulb of a student that can make a big impact on their organization.”

The idea for the company came while Osburn and Boyle were at the Halifax technology company Diaphonics Inc.

When looking to hire a student, the business partners would call professors at universities across the Maritimes. At the same time, students at Saint Mary’s would approach them looking for ways to get their foot in the door at local firms.

“It was that old truism that 60 per cent of jobs are never posted because they’re filled through personal referrals and network connections,” Osburn said. “We wanted to leverage social media to address this issue and help connect students to employers in an intuitive and useful way.”

Findlay Hilchie, a recent Saint Mary’s grad, said Equals6 has filled a niche for students.

“When I was a student I knew social media had a lot of power but when I tried to use things like LinkedIn to connect to employers I would get passed over,” said Hilchie, who was hired by the tech firm when he graduated recently.

“LinkedIn is a professional rolodex and there really wasn’t that version for students. I like Equals6 because it lets you be a student but you can also make those professional connections.”

The name Equals6 comes from the idea that two plus two can equal six if you have collaboration, Osburn said.

“It’s the concept of synergy and that the whole can be bigger than the sum of the parts.”